Takatsuki TA-S01 Power Amplifier

Description

Originality by 300B tube Manufacturer

Takatsuki Electric Industry Co., Ltd. started manufacturing the original 300B tube “TA−300B” as a domestic audio vacuum tube in 2010.

8 years after the release of the TA−300B, the amplifier with original vacuum tubes “TA−S01” was born as a new audio product of Takatsuki Electric Industry. The perfect TA−S01 single‐ended power amplifier, powered by its own TA−300B and TA−274B tubes, has an original design that fully realizes the potential of Takatsuki vacuum tubes. It is an unprecedented 300B amplifier that incorporates ideas that are not bound by fixed concepts of audio, which are unique to an amplifier manufacturer.

Each unit is manufactured and assembled with the utmost care using select materials and under stringent quality control in Takatsuki own plant in Japan. Takatsuki remains committed to high quality and refuse to compromise as they have always been.

Circuit configuration to drive the TA−300B to its full potential

The amplifier is built according to a single‐ended three‐stage circuit. The voltage amplification stage of TA−S01 is two‐stage amplification by the SRPP circuit with 6189 (12AU7) tube in order to lower the output impedance. As a result, 300B of the triode tube, which is generally difficult to drive, is driven with a margin, and its performance is fully brought out. In addition, by reducing the capacitance of the smoothing capacitor in power supply, the reproduction of the low frequency range has been improved.

The power transformer used is Tamura PC−3004A (PC−3004W for overseas use) has about double the power of the transformer used in a conventional single‐ended stereo amplifiers.

The output transformers (F−2007AS) are also specially modified by Tamura according to the Takatsuki specification only for this amplifier.

Sound fine-tuning

The uniqueness of the amplifier is also in the fact that it has a mechanism for fine-tuning sound, implemented in four circuit solutions:

• Harmonic Content
  Adjusts the harmonic spectrum in five steps to change the depth of the tone quality. Adjusts the harmonic spectrum in five steps to change the depth of the tone quality.
• Coupling/Bypass Capacitor
  Two types of interstage capacitors and two types of bypass capacitors are used to switch the tone in four stages.
• Bypass Power Capacitor
  Adjusts the reproduction of the bass range in eight steps to change the sound of bass depending on speaker systems and personal preferences of the user.
• Negative Feedback
  Negative feedback switch in two positions (on or off), which affects the damping factor of the amplifier.

Parts and component selection pursued to the finest detail

The parts that make up TA−S01 are of high quality in terms of accuracy and sound quality, and Takatsuki carefully selects the ones with optimum performance. Highly accurate machined parts with low contact resistance are used for the pins of socket, and each rotary switch is mounted with the same number of contacts for a uniform operating feel.

TA−S01 pursues high quality not only in sound quality but also in usability of details. The housing that wraps PCB board, parts, and wiring is heavy body machined from aluminum with handle, which is also a design accent.